Weaving Wonders

Peter, John and Marina all keep their looms busy and Christine will fire up her weaving skills with a great sense of purpose when she wants to. This week John and Peter were both doing interesting things. With several weavers in the group they help to encourage and inspire each other. Even those who no longer weave or who are having a break from weaving enjoy participating in discussions and process.

John’s woven mat is very fine and in subtle colours but if you look closely you can see a clever zigzag pattern which is emerging. This is a piece which requires thought and skill because the weaving is quite fine and the colours are similar so it means you have to keep thinking. Peter has broken out into a riot of colour and the the vibrancy of his colour piece can be seen. It is cheerful, neat and looks good.

Fibre challenge

Alexis had suggested a fibre challenge she had seen which she thought we might enjoy. It is not compulsory. Those of us who want to participate are going to do that. You can see our stash of contributed fibre. We had to bring along 100 gm of good quality carded fibre. No other requirement other than it had to be ready for spinning. We have all sorts of colours and some interesting fibres here.

Alexis is going to divide the fibre into parcels for each person who contributed. We’ll all get a bag of mixed fibres when we return to our spinning group next year. We then have to spin it. We may not add or take away anything. We spin what we are given. We had thought we might then have a bit more of a challenge to then make than fibre into something which we would share. At this stage we are thinking that might crowd our calendar too much.

It is going to be really interesting to see what each person does with their bag of fibre. It is always living proof everyone is unique and looks as things differently.

Equipment Day

What a stark contrast yesterday was to the day before. On Thursday it had been 42 degrees with catastrophic heat conditions forecast and then, when we were waiting for the bus Friday morning, the ocean had massive waves and it was blowing a really cold wind. We were so glad to get on the bus. Undeterred, we talked all the way up to the Adelaide Hills’ group Equipment Day in Littlehampton, we talked all our way around the venue, all our way to The Felting Ewe at Lenswood, all our way around the She Cave and then all our way back home on the bus. We love a good yarn!

We were warmly welcomed to the Adelaide Hills’ group and we spent a lovely time mixing with all the fibre people and looking at what was there. We were offered a nice morning tea and a beautiful lunch. We came away with books and magazines, bags of fibre, wool tops and bags of fleece and crochet hooks! It was an extremely sociable event where everyone was happy to share their skills and knowledge in a friendly way.

At the Felting Ewe we could see how much time and effort had gone into the impressive gardens and then we enjoyed looking at the feast of colours and fibres in the She Cave. We loved the colours and then the examples of Brenda’s felting. It was such a lovely place to be and we bought wool tops, silks, bits for needle felting and bits for the  tiny Eel spinning wheels.

Everyone was happy and it was a good way to get away from the feeling of the oppressive heat the day before. We can’t wait to see what everyone makes with their purchases.

We love spinning

We do. We do love spinning and the wheels and looms never stop. The colours encourage and inspire us and we just love that rhythm of the wheels. We like to make wool batts and spin those but we like the colourways of tops and then we have been interested in experimenting with different fibres. Mostly it is merino and alpaca in our group but we’ll try dog hair, camel, cotton , plant fibres and rare breeds. We do it to see and then we do it because each fibre feels different. The colours can be outrageously bold or very soft and subtle. Sometimes it is just natural fleece colours and other times we like to play with natural and chemical dyes to see what happens. Our wheels are all different too. Some members are more than happy with their electric wheels and others like to play with their manual wheels. Electric wheels are obviously more transportable because of the size. The latest passion for some of the members, thanks to Christine, are the little 3D printed Eel Wheels. You need to be patient setting them up but they really are a bonus for quick and easy small scale spinning.